What you might not know is that 3 of my 4 kids have birthdays on the same day. Tomorrow, my twin daughters turn 14 and Lead Star turns 16. While there’ll be celebrations, they’re not the only significant events of the week. On Thursday, my family will head out on a cross country move as we return to my hometown, Fairfax, VA.
I last lived in my hometown eight years ago. If this past January you would have told me I’d be moving back to the DC area, I would have laughed at your outlandish prediction. After all, I was living a long-held dream of life in a ski town, my husband was working for Vail Resorts, and my kids were loving life as students at an innovative school focused on leadership and academics.
Then, life changed. COVID-19 entered our worlds and nothing has been the same since. In three challenging weeks in March, Angie and I watched our business go from a vibrant company to one that had to pause most of our operations as workplaces closed for important public health reasons. We were devastated. It all seemed so unbelievable. How could the company we spent 15 years building just disappear? Talk about a low point.
Fortunately, we processed our shock quickly and realized it was time for reinvention. We’ve spent the months since March serving and supporting our clients through crisis times, while also reimagining the future of our company. While it hasn’t been easy, it has been powerfully freeing. When you have nothing left to lose, you suddenly become very aware of what matters most. For us as a company, that’s being of value to the people we’ve been fortunate to know and develop with through the years.
On the homefront, the pandemic gave my family and I the chance to experience a quiet and peace we had never embraced. Up until this point, and by our own doing, our lives have been ones of constant motion. My husband and I crave adventure and challenge, and we have certainly enjoyed experiencing both in many ways. And, while we were living in a beautiful place, we were missing a sense of community and connection. As it turns out, our kids were, too. Together, as a family, we made the choice to go home. By the end of the month, I’ll be living just 15 minutes away from almost every member of my family. My husband will be starting a new job that he’s passionate about. And soon our daughters will be starting 9th grade at the high school I graduated from. How’s that for full circle?
While I know there are many more lessons to learn from this collective journey all of us are on as we move through a year as challenging as 2020, one significant lesson is that low points offer us all an opportunity to create turning points.
During crisis and chaos, we can examine our priorities and make changes that allow us to live our lives in the ways that matter most to us. For me, it’s time to go home.
